Earthlings is the operational foundation of a voluntarily self-organizing non-territorial people - a foundation that has been built and rests on the principle of self-determination; the people itself is constituted by the adoption of the Declaration.
The project's founding documents describe this model as the architecture of a society in which there is no power of some people over others and no one holds a position above another person. Earthlings brings together people from different countries around the Earthlings Declaration - no majority can abolish or narrow the principles of its unamendable core - and around a digital infrastructure providing verified participation on the principle of "one person, one vote" at planetary scale.
The architecture of Earthlings is designed as a single institutional system rather than assembled from off-the-shelf components. For engagement with the existing legal system, registered legal structures and other legal instruments are used - replaceable external interfaces for engagement. After the Declaration is adopted, the persons acting through legal instruments carry out a revocable mandate of the DAO Assembly; before it is adopted there is no people, and no one acts on its behalf. The people itself will be governed through its own DAO infrastructure.
Twenty-five founding documents in nine languages, an on-chain identity, and a publicly verifiable treasury make up Earthlings in its current institutional state. The full operational cycle is covered by four sites in production, deployed from April 2025 onward:
- the founding documents;
- identity verification and the issuance of registry entries (during the founding period, temporary documents of participants in the founding);
- the ecosystem platform;
- a philosophical companion site.
The passport registry contract, identity verification, Cells, and the accounting of the internal economy are deployed and working; the public voting channel is deployed, but no substantive votes have yet been held in it, there is no tool for secret voting yet, and the founding vote will be held openly, and the Treasury smart contracts have not been deployed (the document "Where We Are Now"). The founding of the people is under way: entry will open if the Declaration is adopted, and from the first day the whole practice of self-government - votes, decisions, movements of funds - will be recorded in a public chronicle.
The economic level is deliberately separated from governance and from identification. Every Earthling holds three architecturally distinct attributes:
- a non-transferable SBT passport, once it has been issued (identity);
- one vote in the DAO regardless of any other assets (governance): the vote arises by signing the Declaration, and the passport confirms it;
- a measurable economic trace expressed in Earthlings Coin (EC).
EC is the internal unit of account of the ecosystem. By design it pays for platform services, reflects work contributed in Cells, and serves to fund collective initiatives; today the unit has not been issued: the economy of participation is kept in the platform's internal accounting (the document "Earthlings Coin", section 8).
The quantity of EC a person holds is, as a matter of principle, not convertible into influence over governance. Wealth and the vote exist as separate architectural axes rather than being merged, as in most DAO models, into a single token-weighted variable.
EC is not a security and not an investment instrument. It is not legal tender and is not electronic money; within the ecosystem it serves as a unit of account for services and for work contributed.
Earthlings offers not a manifesto with technology attached but a functioning institution that can be examined, verified, and, if the Declaration is adopted, joined.
The founding corpus was written by Artur Arakelian, the author of the Declaration. It is a draft put forward for discussion, not a finished body of rules that only remains to be adopted.
Anyone may propose an amendment to any document, and the Declaration acquires force not from authorship but from the vote: this people will be founded not by whoever drew up the documents, but by those who adopt and sign the Declaration. The procedure is set out in The Founding Period.
The institutional architecture of Earthlings consists of three distinct structural elements, none of which holds power over a person.
This principle is fundamental: each element addresses tasks structurally unavailable to the others, but decisions are taken only by the DAO Assembly; the legal instruments carry out its revocable mandate, the Council will advise it, and no element holds power over a person.
The result is an architecture in which no one holds a position above another person, and powers are distributed, revocable, and kept to a minimum.
Within the community itself, the Charter distinguishes four functional roles:
- the DAO Assembly - DECISIONS;
- the Core Nodes - SERVICE;
- the Emergency Multisig - SECURITY;
- the Independent Council - ADVICE.
The DAO Assembly, comprising all Earthlings, takes binding decisions.
The Core Nodes provide technical coordination on a rotating basis.
The Emergency Multisig protects the infrastructure from exploits and critical threats - also on a rotating basis.
The Independent Council will give expert recommendations and advisory opinions (more). The Charter enters into force with the adoption of the Declaration (Charter, Article 38); until then there is no DAO Assembly, no Core Nodes, no Emergency Multisig, and no Independent Council, and the only discretionary power of the founding period with regard to the texts is the decision of the author of the Declaration to include proposals in the text (the document "The Founding Period").
If one looks not at the internal roles but at the means through which Earthlings acts externally, there are three key elements: the DAO, the legal instruments, and the Independent Council. They provide collective self-government, external legal engagement, and - once the Council is formed - expert advice.
The SERVICE and SECURITY functions are performed by separate technical bodies, described in detail in the documents The Earthlings DAO and Digital Platform.
The DAO
The DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) forms the institutional core of governance for the Earthlings people.
The DAO provides:
- collective decision-making;
- transparent allocation of resources;
- coordination of action between Earthlings and Cells;
- the functioning of the system without centralized authority.
The DAO rests on three fundamental principles:
- the confirmed uniqueness of every participant;
- the principle of "one person, one vote";
- transparent procedural rules applied equally to all.
A detailed description of the DAO architecture, the levels of participation, the decision-making procedures, and the mechanisms of protection against capture is given in the document The Earthlings DAO.
Legal instruments (the external legal interface)
For engagement with the existing legal system, registered legal structures and other legal instruments in one or more jurisdictions are used.
Their functions are limited to:
- legal representation;
- engagement with external institutions;
- concluding contracts;
- tax and administrative accounting.
Such structures serve solely as replaceable operational means of external engagement:
- they do not define the people or its existence;
- they carry no legitimacy and hold no power over the people;
- they do not manage the DAO treasury and take no governance decisions for the people;
- they remain replaceable and external: they may be established, replaced, and wound up without affecting the continuity and identity of the people.
Grants and donations are accepted under the rules of the Treasury (the document "The Earthlings Treasury", Articles 5 and 28); operations in fiat currency pass through an instrument legal entity, which is an independent taxpayer in its own jurisdiction. Where a grantor or the law requires it, a grant may be received through an independent fiscal host.
The detailed legal model is set out in the document Legal Basis.
The Independent Council
The Independent Council, as described in the Earthlings Charter and in the dedicated document The Earthlings Independent Council, is conceived as a body of seven to eleven experts, drawn from among Earthlings, who take no part in the operational governance of the people. The list of areas of competence is indicative and is not a system of quotas:
- ecology, climate, sustainable development;
- economics and questions of the new economy;
- ethics and philosophy;
- human rights;
- science and education;
- the experience of local and indigenous communities.
The Council is intended to serve as the people's ethical mirror through:
- advisory opinions;
- recommended reviews of DAO decisions;
- annual public reports.
The Council holds no right of veto over decisions of the DAO.
Its authority is reputational, not formal.
The Independent Council is formed after the Declaration is adopted, as the people grows (the document "The Earthlings Independent Council").
The key principle in forming the Council is that its members should be people who have studied the Earthlings model in depth, not public figures invited solely for status or prestige.
The project was initiated by Artur Arakelian; up to now it has been financed entirely from his personal funds.
No external funding has been raised to date.
The Earthlings legal structures do not operate as financial intermediaries: they provide no payment services, neither raise nor place third-party funds, and conduct no trading operations for anyone's benefit.
The details are set out in the document Legal Basis.
The on-chain treasury is held in a Safe wallet on the Polygon network; for now the signature threshold is one (the document "Where We Are Now").
Every transaction is available for public audit.
